Ideas to use

We have Uh-Oh chores for when they are naughty, whiney, tattle-taling, etc. These are jobs like:
 
bring down hampers and sort laundry for mom
empty all garbage cans in house
clean out van                                Write letter
clean off back patio            sweep front porch
clean up driveway                        vacuum family room and play room
empty the dishwasher                    load the dishwasher
extra piano practice                        practice ABC’s/numbers
clean some glass                        clean attic
flashcards                            Mom picks
Mom picks                            clean front of fridge
tidy up mudroom                        clean front of dishwasher
clean backyard                            dust piano

We love the play of words and their meanings, the sounds and rhythms of words, the rhymes and the ideas.  These fun and nonsense poems declare,

“You can do this too!”

And that’s how we have done poetry the last while.
We make our own versions of the poems!
We illustrated or painted our poems.
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The Van Gogh picture  “Starry Night”  is one of the most popular downloads!   You can find all my other art activities and free downloads here.
 Then we washed the page with black water-colour.  This was to have a dark background between the little strokes and to give a night-time feel to the picture.  The white and yellow moon, stars and windows really stood out!
Now the girls started to fill in areas.  They sat at the computer, zoomed in and really looked to see what colours Van Gogh used.  This took some time, but already they were happy with their art as it began to look more and more like the masterpiece!

The dark greens, blacks and greys of the Cypress tree

Swirling blues, whites and greys of the sky

All done, in just an hour or so!  They really appreciated how long Van Gogh must have worked on this masterpiece, how many colours he dabbed on the canvas and how these colours created movement and mood.  They loved this lesson!

Van Gogh's Starry Night by Miss K, 10 years old

Van Gogh's Starry Night by Miss L 7 years old

Here are some links I used to prepare this lesson:
artprojectsforkids.org – Kathy Barbro’s delightful art lesson ideas!
vangoghmuseum.nl – colouring pages of several of van Gogh’s masterpieces.  (I drew my own of the “Starry Night”)
Web Gallery of Art – for pictures of masterpieces

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

Leanna:

*Sketched dolphins from a dolphin kit, drew pictures in her sketch book and colored them (patterned paper),
*Tried a new website: Storybird and played around with it, making online picture books and writing a book for Lorelei.  She still seems to have writers block of some sort though, she wasn't as inspired by the art as I expected her to be.
*We read the first chapter of: The Story of the World Vol.2
*We did watch a preamble video, but she focused more on dancing than the details of it.  We'll go over it again.
*the boys started the day off nicely-quietly and quickly getting up& dressed and brushing their teeth, making their bed, and putting away pjs.  Super quietly for them (though maybe not for normal kids). 
*Justin did 3 pages in a ready set learn workbook.  He began sketching some pictures (first on computer paper, then in a sketch book.)We did some math  together-he wanted to keep working once he realized he was way ahead of Timothy!  That motivates him to keep going. 
*Timothy finished his dot to dot alphabet workbook.  He also worked in his math book.  
I did a Storybird story with both Justin and Timothy.  Justin wrote about a shark, penguin, and the three stooges (with Leanna's butt in the title) and Timothy wrote about a magician and  a rabbit and a robot. 

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

* She began to work on our Pumpkin study-Pumpkin face, compound words, two sheets of pumpkin measuring, and she read about the pumpkin life cycle and parts of a pumpkin. 
*She did a brief journal entry
*We read multiple selections from What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know-a William Blake poem, selections from Don Quixote & Frederick Douglas, a tale from Japan, and a brief description of William Shakespeare (and why he's an important guy). 
*Girl Scout Meeting

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

*Pumpkin copywork
*Scientific Method discussion and worksheets
*Read and discussed 4 poems-subject of treatment of black Americans introduced.
*Sherlock holmes workbook
*Lifeskills-all on her own made chocolate cookies from a cookbook.

Justin and Timothy each did some of their math books.
Difficult day.  Lorelei wouldn't sleep, boys bouncing off the walls, Leanna grouchy!  I felt a bit sick-Tom had a bad headache. 

Monday, September 19, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

*5th grade vacation workbook-pages on: compound words, attempted the logic section, place values, Quotation marks, and joining words. 
*Journaling-worked on the next chapter of her story.
*Cut and pasted correct amounts of change to match purchase prices for "back to school supplies shopping." 
*Silent Reading: Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
*American Girls Club meeting-They put on a play about five girls who wanted to go to France.  Played on the trampolines too. 

*Uncle Billy stopped by unexpectedly and helped Justin with his math.
*Timothy worked through his alphabet workbook with me.
*The boys walked to the bank/store with me today.  They played in the backyard also.  
*I read all the fables in the What Your 1st grader Needs to Know book to the boys (mainly Justin).  We talked about what "fable" and "moral" mean and they tried to guess the meanings of the fables they heard. 


*Over the weekend we had a family birthday party and Leanna went to Grammy's with Timothy.  They had Sunday School and socialization.  Apparently Timothy was very funny.